At some point, we all get stuck. Maybe it’s in a job or career. Maybe it’s a relationship or business venture. Though it’s something we all experience, when it happens, we can feel alone and out of our depth. Emotions may overwhelm us. Mental traps lure is in. In no time at all, we can’t see a way out. Award-winning professor, researcher, and author, Adam Alter, has spent decades studying how successful people get unstuck. In his latest book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get...

There’s never been a better time to question how we measure intelligence. With ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence pushing the boundaries of what it means to be smart, there’s an opportunity – even an urgency – to reconsider everything we know. That’s why I wanted to talk to Rina Bliss, author of the book, Rethinking Intelligence: A Radical New Understanding of Our Human Potential. A sociologist and genetics expert, Rina brings a fresh perspective to the discussion that...

Small things add up. And, for the most part, that’s a good thing. Like taking the stairs to get more exercise or swapping out something sugary for a piece of fruit. Over time, small actions like these can add up to a healthier lifestyle. Yet there are times when the small things that add up work against our well-being. Every time your boss shifts your priorities. Each time you have to cancel connecting with a friend. Rob Cross and Karen Dillon take a closer look at these moments in...

Change is a part of life, and it’s a big part of growing and developing. Yet, with change comes uncertainty, and that can cause us to get stuck. To thrive during change, we need a mental agility that comes from self-awareness, emotional awareness, and situational awareness. It’s about what Elaine Fox calls, switch craft. Elaine Fox is a leading psychologist and performance coach who’s spent her career working with athletes, military leaders, and executives. What she’s seen is that the...

No one wants to feel like a sucker. In fact, the very thought of being one – of playing the fool – shapes our behavior in powerful ways. But what if our fear causes us to make choices that aren’t good for us? Or worse, what if people weaponize our fear in order to dominate or disempower us? Tess Wilkinson-Ryan has written a stunning book on the topic called, Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order and What We Can Do about It. A psychologist and...

Almost everything we do – personally and professionally – is affected by the words we use. They help us build relationships, persuade others, and communicate feelings. But what if I told you that 6 types of words were better at doing those things than all the others? These findings are at the heart of Jonah Berger’s latest book, Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way. Jonah is a bestselling author who’s studied millions of words used in all kinds of settings. And he’s found that...

The pandemic caused many of us to rethink our lives. From the places we’ve been living to the work we’ve been doing. It’s been an opportunity to hit the reset button. Of course, financial considerations play a central role, and that’s something Jill Schlesinger began to notice. It’s what prompted her to write her latest book, The Great Money Reset: Change Your Work, Change Your Wealth, Change Your Life. A financial analyst and former financial planner, Jill wants to give us the financial...

As adults, we need to learn new things all the time. Yet many of us are relying on the same outdated methods we used as adolescents to do it. Thinks like relentless highlighting and endless rereading. If so, it may be time to take advantage of the latest research on learning. That’s where Daniel Willingham comes in. In this interview, we discuss his latest book, Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy. Dan explains when our brains may be working against...

One of the messages our culture delivers is “not enough.” Not clever enough. Not busy enough. Not successful enough. It’s a cultural mantra that beats just below the surface of many conversations, especially the ones we have with ourselves. That’s what’s so refreshing about Vanessa Bohns’ book, You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate our Power of Persuasion and Why It Matters. Vanessa’s message, when it comes to influence and persuasion, is that we’re more than enough....

Confidence seems elusive. We do something that comes easily and we don’t think twice about it. Or we try something new, experience setbacks, and question our capabilities. It leaves us thinking that confidence is something other people just seem to have. All the time. Performance psychologist Nate Zinsser knows that’s just not true. For decades he’s been working with Olympians, professional athletes, military leaders, and other high performers in his role as Director of West Point's...

Most of us have a love-hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions. We love that feeling of a fresh start. But we hate how our commitments seldom make it to Valentine’s Day. So what if this year we had an expert teach us how to do it right? Ayelet Fishbach is that expert. She’s a social psychologist at the University of Chicago and author of the book, Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation. In this interview, we talk about how to choose goals that energize...

How we think about things can have an outsize impact on whether we achieve our goals. Take, for example, the research we might do to make an important decision. If we’re already committed to a certain way of thinking, it’s likely we’ll only focus on information that confirms what we already believe. It’s what scientists call confirmation bias, and it can cause us to overlook, or even dismiss, information critical to things like our health, our finances, and our careers. And it’s not the...

Who are you? It’s a question you’ve had to answer if you’ve ever moved, changed jobs, or started a new relationship. And it’s natural that who you are will change with each new experience you gain and new memories you form. The “story of you” will be different. At the same time, our brain is an incredible editor. With limited storage space for memories, it’s got to pick and choose. It does that by connecting the dots between them to give us the stories we tell about ourselves. In...

Work relationships matter more than we think. They can be a key reason we stay in a job or the reason we leave. When they don’t go well, they can consume a lot of our time and energy, both in and out of work. That’s why we need to get better at them. Even the difficult ones, like a boss who takes all the credit or a co-worker who’s perpetually negative. Amy Gallo is an expert on conflict and a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review. In this interview, we discuss her most recent...

What if becoming a better quitter was something to aspire to? Annie Duke thinks it is. She’s a national science foundation fellowship winner and bestselling author who’s used her background in psychology to become a successful poker player and business advisor. Lately, she’s spent time studying the power of quitting, a tool she argues is as important as grit, resilience, and sticking it out. The science shows we’re not great at it. We don’t fire quickly enough. We don’t quit soon...

What if the skills we need to thrive in uncertainty were ones we already had? That’s the case Jennifer Garvey Berger makes in her latest book, Unleash Your Complexity Genius: Growing Your Inner Capacity to Lead. When life is good, we make time to connect, engage, and create. But when it’s uncertain, stress gets in the way of these healthy behaviors. While we can’t always change life’s complexity, we can counter its effects by tapping into healthy features of our biology. These...

Your manager sees it one way. Your colleague sees it another. Both ways are different from yours. Why is that? Well, our brains may have something to do with it. Today’s brain researchers are studying what makes our brains different. They’re finding that these differences not only impact how we interpret situations, but also how well we’re able to focus, learn new things, and adapt to change. They’re also discovering what motivates us and how well we connect with teammates. Chantel Prat...

How we think about toughness needs a reset. Too often, it’s been associated with brute forcing our way through things. Ignoring our feelings. Making an outward show of confidence and dominance. The problem is it just doesn't work. Performance coach and bestselling author, Steve Magness, offers another way. He’s done a deep dive on the latest research on toughness and performance. In his book, Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and The Surprising Science of Real Toughness, he...

What do you do when a promotion isn't an option? Maybe there aren’t enough positions to go around. It’s not the right moment in your career. Or maybe you don’t want the management responsibilities. In each case, you can feel stuck. But what if there were other options for career growth and development? That’s the case Julie Winkle Giulioni makes in her book, Promotions are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development and Help Employees Thrive. In it, she shares seven areas for growth that...

Is our cultural conditioning holding women back at work? We don’t often notice how we’re culturally conditioned. Like when we walk into a store and the girls’ toys are pink and boys’ toys are blue. It’s a gender norm we may not question.  Now you might ask, in the big scheme of things, how much do kids’ toy colors really matter? But what about actual behaviors, like when girls are playing together and they’re told to be quiet and play nice? Years later, these kinds of gender norms...

There are times in our lives where we feel stuck, be it personally or professionally. It might be in our career. It might in a relationship. We’re smart, so we try to think our way out of it. But when we’re really stuck, thinking can turn into ruminating. And the more we think, the more we stay stuck. That’s when the labeling kicks in. The voice in our head labels us lazy, or crazy, or just plain unmotivated. Today’s guest, Britt Frank, is a licensed specialist clinical social worker...

Most of us believe that if we're smart, work hard, and hit our targets, we've got what it takes to get promoted. And, in some organizations, we might be right. But, in many organizations, those skills only take us so far. Research shows that there's an additional set of skills, one we don't often discuss. Things like, strategic networking, political intelligence, and likeability. If you're like most people, these skills bring up a lot of strong emotions. You may even ask, why can't...

In most organizations, moving up means managing projects. And if you want to grow your project management skills, you’ve got a wealth of resources to choose from. Everything from books and podcasts to courses and certifications. What’s much harder to find is information on how to lead a project, not just manage one. It’s the missing piece that may ultimately be more important to your project’s success. That’s why I wanted to interview Anh Dao Pham, author of the book, Glue: How Project...

For the first time in U.S. history, we have employees from five different generations working side by side. With so many different perspectives and life experiences, conflict is inevitable. Unfortunately, this often leads to stereotyping. We classify colleagues as millennial snowflakes, entitled young people, or clueless boomers. When this happens, we miss out on some of the greatest business opportunities of the twenty-first century. Opportunities to build better products and services...

The most successful leaders are always looking for an edge. It could be a competitive edge for their organizations, their teams, even themselves. One of the most effective ways to gain that edge is to notice what others miss. It’s about rethinking accepted wisdom around things like, strategy, planning, and execution. This week’s guest, Roger Martin, is someone who brought that kind of critical thinking to his own successful business and who now brings it to leaders around the world. He...